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Josh Fink brings news of an Atlanta resident who has created a remote control robot to scare off criminals during the night. Rufus Terrill, an engineer, uses it to patrol the streets and encourage drug dealers and other shady characters to move on. Local residents call it his "Robocop." From CNN:
"It's a barbecue smoker mounted on a three-wheeled scooter, and armed with an infrared camera, spotlight, loudspeaker and aluminum water cannon that shoots a stream of icy water about 20 feet. Operated by remote control, the robot spotlights trespassers on property down the street from his bar, O'Terrill's. Using a walkie-talkie, Terrill belts out through the robot's loudspeaker, 'That's private property. You guys need to get out of here.'"

Police Major Lane Hagin says the robot is definitely a different crime-fighting idea. "There's no problem with the robot going up and down the street or being visible or any of the other things it does -- with the exception of spraying water on people."

Hagin adds, "Then, it becomes an assault no matter where it happens."

I thought you could... bet it costs less than a taser gun and training too.

Assault? That seriously puts kids and the super soaker company in serious trouble? WTF?

Seriously, assault? Perhaps, since the robot is black, it should only presume to act like the black night in Monty Python's 'Holy Grail' movie?... don't run away, you coward! Come back, I'll burn you to death with my spotlight......

This is slashdot. Here we'd 1) jam the signal to incapacitate & nab it 2) reconfigure & overtake the rf control 3) refill it with gasoline & tape a burning zippo to the nozzle. 4) send it back to the owner and make it look like an accident

Hmm...
I can imagine a drug dealer or someone building his own robot to anonymously attack and destroy this one. Then this one gets repaired and beefed up, and maybe a few friends add their own robots to the posse. The next time the offending 'bot comes around, the robots swarm around it and take it out. Then this 'bot's builder gets some of his mates and they make bigger and badder robots to combat this new threat; adding chainsaws and flamethrowers.
Soon, the whole thing escalates to a super-serious Robot Wars on the city streets!
Mechanical gangs fighting it out for street territory!
Soon, everyone would be too scared to go out at night in case they run into a gang of robots; barricading themselves in their homes and lying awake in horror to the sounds of the metallic carnage going outside their windows!

Melodrama aside, it would be pretty cool to watch the all-out robotic street brawls --from a distance. It'd be like something out of Terminator.